Chronicles of Isambard Smith 05 - End of Empires (21 page)

A ripple of fire came from the east. For three seconds, gunfire cracked out – single shots, mainly – and then someone called, ‘Reloading’.

‘We’d be safer in the ship,’ Carveth whispered.

Smith shook his head. ‘Stay close.’

To the southwest, a voice shouted ‘
Huphep!
’ It sounded thin and crazy, the way the Ancient Mariner might.

Another sharp set of bangs. Smith saw bulky figures dart between the trees, swung his rifle up but couldn’t get a shot. One of the silhouettes was hit, stumbled, hit again and fell.

‘Crap, oh crap,’ Carveth said.

Suruk said, very calmly, ‘Conserve your ammunition. They will attack from behind.’

And before Smith could think that he was right, the Yull rushed out of cover behind them, howling and yelling as if the forest had spat them at the invaders. Smith saw bayonets, dark fur striped with green, and shot one of the lemmings in the chest. A M’Lak soldier rushed over and started firing his laser rifle between the tree trunks. One huge lemming broke from the undergrowth, screaming – he looks like a sodding great otter, Smith thought – and Suruk stepped from the side and speared it in the flank. Carveth’s shotgun banged out, a flat sound like a car door slamming. Something big fell into the undergrowth, set the leaves shaking.

Quiet again. Smith glanced to the right. Where was Wainscott? Was he cut off? How could you lose a crazy shouting nudist?

What if
they
were cut off? A big frond flopped back, and he saw Susan and was almost ashamed at how relieved he felt. Dreckitt was next to Carveth, telling her to stop firing.

One of the Sey pointed with its beak and barked something. A moment later it pulled its beam gun up and let rip. The laser cut a swathe through the undergrowth, slicing plants like a scythe. Bullets flew out of the forest. Lemming men fell among the greenery.

Suruk burst from behind a tree, holding a severed head. ‘I think there are many,’ he said. ‘We are surrounded.’

‘Great.’ A bullet whacked into a trunk eight feet away. They both ducked down, scanning the greenery to see where the shot had come from.

‘We’ve got to get out of here,’ Carveth called. ‘Let’s go to the ship!’

‘If they are going to take you alive, slay yourself,’ Suruk said. He pulled a stiletto from his boot. ‘Die, filth of Yullia!’ He tossed the knife into a thick, broad-leafed shrub, and a lemming man shrieked and fell.

‘Screw this,’ Carveth announced. ‘I’m getting the ship!’

She ran. ‘Nix, kid!’ Dreckitt yelled, grabbing for her, but she was too quick and too scared. Carveth ran down the path, and a shadow dropped from above her.

Smith saw it plunging from the trees: a lemming man, its snout split in a hideous grin as it plummeted from the canopy, a stick of dynamite fizzing in either hand. He watched the Yullian fall towards Carveth with a sort of awful finality, and wondered why he was charging forward to rescue her.

Rhianna sprang onto the path. She hit Carveth with her shoulder, knocking her over. Smith cried out, still dashing forward to save them, somehow, and a moment after the two women hit the ground, the lemming man smashed into the earth six feet away.

He felt the explosion, the lumps of bark, soil and rodent flying past his face, but the blow didn’t come. Nothing threw him off his feet. He opened his eyes and stood up slowly, afraid of what he would see.

Rhianna crouched on the pathway, arms around Carveth. They were at the epicentre of the devastation, as if the explosion had billowed out of them. Carveth was shaking. Rhianna seemed deadly calm.

Susan’s voice, behind them: ‘Come on, let’s go! Smith, we need your chaps to get the ship going. Let’s move!’

Smith helped Rhianna get Carveth upright. ‘Right,’ said the android. ‘A lemming jumped on my head. Get the spaceship. Of course. Did you see that? Right on my head. Boom.’

As they reached the
John Pym
a flap opened in the opposite bank and a barrel was thrust out. A gun stuttered into life, cutting down two of Wainscott’s men in a second. Smith pulled his rifle up, but before he could fire, a burning bottle sailed end-over-end across the water and broke on the far bank.

Flame engulfed the gun position. Wainscott slapped Smith on the shoulder. ‘Filthy stuff, that dandelion wine,’ he said, and he strode toward the ship. ‘You can run a lawnmower off it.’

Suruk strode out of the trees, arms locked around a thrashing lemming. ‘Monkey-frog, you will die!’ it screeched. For a moment they struggled, rodent against amphibian on the riverbank like some hellish re-imagining of
The Wind In The Willows
, and then Suruk heaved it into the river. For a moment the Yull thrashed, and then something below the water yanked it out of sight.

Smith opened the airlock and ushered the bewildered Carveth towards the cockpit. ‘It fell right out of the trees, boss,’ she said, her hands shakily pushing the keys into the ignition. ‘Like a great big coconut.’

Sudden gunfire pinged against the hull. Smith hurried out of the cockpit.

Rhianna was pulling people on board. Already the corridor by the airlock was clogged with soldiers. The back door dropped open, splashing into the river, and Wainscott’s men sloshed their way into the hold. The major stood by the ramp, apparently oblivious to the enemy gunfire, helping them on board. In a few moments, humans, Sey, M’Lak and beetle people crowded the hold.

‘Everybody on?’ Smith demanded.

‘All aboard,’ Susan replied.

He hit the door panel. ‘Move it, Carveth!’ he called and, bullets still pattering against the hull, the
John Pym
tore into the sky.

* * *

Someone had set up a portable television on a camp stool. Morgar leaned in and cranked the dial. The screen flickered, and a tall, curly-haired man appeared.

‘It’s that idiot off the television,’ Bargath said, barely looking up. ‘Lionel Markham. I can’t stand him.’

Morgar turned the horn round to face them and twisted the volume knob.

‘…
to the video clip, which has already found its way around the allied planets. The message in it is seen as exemplifying the fighting spirit of the soldiers on the Yullian front, putting to rest ongoing rumours about their commitment to the fight against lemming tyranny
.’

‘Humpf!’ Bargath said, scribbling out part of the crossword.

The picture changed: a small figure in shirtsleeves and a utility waistcoat appeared. ‘
No more running!
’ she announced.

Morgar took off his spectacles, checked the lenses and slipped them back on. ‘Good Lord,’ he said. ‘I know her.’

Bargath tugged a flask out his tunic. ‘Is there anyone on television you don’t know?’

‘No, seriously. I know her. Friend of a friend.’

‘
I don’t care how many lemming men I have to fight!
’ Carveth shrilled on the screen. ‘
But no more running!
’

Markham’s face reappeared. ‘
That’s the message coming out of the 112th army today. No more running. The name of the speaker, nicknamed Battle Girl, cannot be given for strategic reasons. We can only hope that the high command, both Imperial and Yullian, has taken that message on board.
’ He nodded to the camera. ‘
I’m Lionel Markham, and this is
We Ask the Questions
. Goodnight
.’

They looked at the screen.

‘Well,’ Bargath said, ‘good on her. Get stuck in. That’s the spirit. Gin?’

‘Bit early for me.’

‘What?’

Morgar sighed. ‘Make mine a small one, then.’ He accepted the drink, which would have been small only to a buffalo, and sipped it warily. At least the tonic water was flat. Getting drunk in this heat would have been nauseating.

‘Saw you riding today,’ Bargath said. ‘I think you’re getting the hang of it.’

‘Thanks.’

‘You can’t have a lancer who can’t ride out properly,’ Bargath said, taking a huge swig of gin. ‘Even if he is just the chap who designs the lavs. We have a reputation to live up to,’ he added. ‘There’s a reason mankind calls us the elite.’

‘
Their
elite,’ Morgar replied. ‘You know, our species is capable of things other than violence.’

‘Of course. We can do anything we put our minds to – provided we do it with swords!’ Bargath lowered his glass and squinted at Morgar. ‘I say – you’re not about to suggest that Ravnavar should leave the Empire, are you?’

‘Well, I –’

‘Because you know what would happen if we did? Something bad. I’m not quite sure what, but definitely bad. Can’t have that,’ he added, leaning back. ‘We’d probably run out of brandy or something.’

A lancer bounced past on his steed, turned neatly and pulled up in front of them. ‘Captain. I’ve been sent to tell you it’s time to break camp. We’re moving out.’

Bargath leaned forward. ‘Move out?’ He looked ill-prepared to move out of his chair, Morgar thought. But Bargath was struggling upright,
Telegraph
wedged under his arm like a baton.

‘I thought they’d put the order over the PA system,’ Morgar said.

‘’Course not,’ Bargath replied. ‘It might alert the enemy.’

‘I’d have thought that six hundred giant chameleons would do that anyhow.’

The captain scowled. His brass buttons and riding boots twinkled as he strode towards the officers’ quarters. ‘It’s probably so we get to ride out first, ahead of all the proles. The last thing we want is a bunch of M’Lak Riflemen lowering the tone.’

An aircraft flew overhead, a VTOL scout ship. ‘They’re fellow M’Lak,’ Morgar said. ‘Surely they’re our brothers in arms.’

Bargath stopped and looked round. He seemed weary more than annoyed. ‘Now, look,’ he said, pointing at Morgar’s face with his mandibles, ‘a Ravnavari Lancer can have only one brother in arms, and that’s another Ravnavari Lancer. And perhaps his noble steed, if it’s been cleaned recently. You may think we’re lackeys, but I happen to believe we’re what keeps our planet safe from rodent tyranny. Alright?’

Morgar nodded. Bargath was wrong, Morgar thought, but the level of eloquence in his wrongness was surprising. ‘Alright.’

‘Good man. Let’s get cracking, eh? I want to reach camp by dinner time.’

* * *

Smith headed back to check on the others. The injured had been stabilised as best as possible, and now the soldiers packed out the hold, sitting on the floor and the mezzanine. There was a little talking among the men, but the atmosphere was subdued.

He approached Wainscott and Susan. ‘Is everything alright?’

Susan lowered her battered paperback and peered at him over the top. ‘I dunno. We’ve got injured people and not enough teacups to go round.’

‘We can do it in shifts. I’ll stick the kettle on.’

Smith called Suruk out of his room. Suruk emerged, rubbing a blue paste over his forearms.

‘Are you alright, old chap?’ Smith asked. ‘You’re looking a bit – well, greener than usual.’

‘I caught the sun,’ Suruk replied. ‘Much longer out there and I would have started to photosynthesise.’

Smith put him on tea duty and headed to the cockpit. In the windscreen, the forest rolled past, the treetops pressed together as if they flew over an enormous piece of broccoli. Smith saw a thing like the letter T sticking out of one of the trees, and realised that it was the tail of a Yullian fighter plane, wedged into the foliage.

‘How’re the others?’ Carveth asked. ‘Is Rhianna trying to do some holistic bollocks to them?’

‘Actually, she’s psychically protecting the ship against ground fire,’ Smith replied. ‘Where’s our destination?’

Carveth pointed. ‘There.’

It looked like a burned patch, as if someone had sizzled away the forest. Smith leaned forward and the brown mass split into different buildings, a sort of plateau, and suddenly he realised what he was looking at.

Mothkarak, or at least the main mass of it, rose out of the forest like a single scrimshawed knuckle. Once it had been a great pale rock, almost mountain-sized, but construction drones had cut off the top and used the stone to raise a wall around the plateau sixty feet high. Within, a swarm of towers strained towards the sun like etiolated stems. Masses of domes, spires and minarets swelled from the rock. Rows of statues made vertebrae out of the rooftops. It was a fortress, but also a city, a bastion against the jungle.

‘Greetings!’ said the radio. ‘Fellow warriors, you are clear to land.’

A window opened in one of the tallest towers and a woman leaned out, waving a reflective baton in each hand. Carveth lowered the ship, and they sank between the spires, past stern-faced statues and gun emplacements.

Smith saw trucks like matchboxes in one of the courtyards. A missile turret swung to cover them, studded with lenses and glinting like an insect’s eye. The
Pym
landed between two immense buttresses, and as soon as the dust started to sink, medics and ground crew hurried towards them. Carveth flicked a switch, and the hold door flopped down like a drawbridge.

They gathered their gear and left by the side airlock. Wainscott’s team were being directed, and in a few cases carried, towards a cathedral-sized building for debriefing. Only now, Smith saw how dirty the major’s people were, and how battered and customised their gear was. He wondered how much longer they could have gone on, and how much longer Wainscott – or Susan – would have allowed.

‘Bloody hell,’ Carveth said, ‘I’m glad that’s over.’

Rhianna nodded. ‘Definitely! I really don’t like having to wear boots. And now everyone is together again. Isn’t that –’

One of the ground crew pointed at them. ‘Hey, look! Look who it is!’

Others heard, stopped and turned to see. Suddenly, there were faces staring at the four of them.

‘I thought this mission was supposed to be secret!’ Carveth hissed. ‘Boss, did you tell anyone?’

‘Me? Certainly not.’ Smith managed to smile at the people. He felt both awkward and rather proud. ‘Good day to you all!’ he called. ‘Carry on!’

‘It’s Battle Girl!’ one of the men cried. ‘From off the telly!’

Smith said, ‘What?’

Rhianna scratched her head. ‘Huh?’

‘Oh God,’ Carveth said, ‘they’re looking at me! What did I do? It wasn’t me!’ she called. ‘I only just got here!’